


something to fill the space

by sevenfoxes



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: F/M, Minor Bucky Barnes/Natasha Romanov, The End, also that no one fucks with natasha when she's hungry, and is generally shameless about it, and that waitresses at their favourite restaurants are legit scared of her, complete and total fluff, it is my head canon that bucky barnes enjoys ridiculous "girly" drinks, oh this is also about darcy being into skinny!steve, she threatens to disembowel him, steve being an awkward dork, then she's like a rolly polly kitten, they are the cutest couple, until they get her well fed, when bucky tells her that
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-17
Updated: 2014-07-17
Packaged: 2018-02-09 08:04:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,942
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1975305
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sevenfoxes/pseuds/sevenfoxes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They’re nursing the first round of beers when Clint says, “Whoa,” in an awed tone. When Steve turns to face him, Clint’s got almost comically large eyes which seem to be darting between Steve, Natasha, and something over Steve’s shoulder. “Is that Lewis with Henry from Accounting?”</p><p>Sure enough, when Steve darts a look, trying for casual enough that if Darcy catches him looking it won’t appear like he’s creepily staring at her, she is, indeed, sitting next to Henry, her eyes focused on his face as he tells her a story that involves a lot of hand gestures. Darcy laughs suddenly and brings her bottle of beer to lips. Steve tries not to stare at her mouth and fails miserably.</p><p>He and Darcy haven’t crossed paths many times over the last few months that she’s been working at the tower on various projects with Stark or SHIELD, but she reminds him a bit of the girls that used to run the show in his old neighbourhood, used to wear bright red lipstick and let the wind toss their skirts up high enough that the married, church-going women would toss them a dirty, judgemental look before corralling their children or husbands into their homes.</p><p>--</p><p>Darcy has a type, and it's more Steve 1942 than Steve 2014.</p>
            </blockquote>





	something to fill the space

**Author's Note:**

> For [Em](http://i-eat-men-like-air.tumblr.com/) on her b-day. A total fluff piece based on her headcanon that, "Darcy’s type is usually like, the skinny artistic hipster type and Steve just kind of kicks himself every time she starts dating someone new because he finally found a woman who would have been totally into him pre-serum but ughhh now he has no idea how to impress her."
> 
> I still don't have any idea how this turned into something this long. 100% self-indulgence here, guys.

Most days, unless one of the other guys - or ladies, through Natasha always gets a really constipated look when Steve calls her that or ma’am more than once - drags him out, end with Steve going home to either sketch or read for the evening, turning in early enough to make his morning runs with Sam at six.

It’s a routine that works well for Steve. He knows that they worry about him, that they think he’s lonely, and to be fair, Steve isn’t sure if he is either way. He’s got a life - he’s got Bucky and a team that he trusts implicitly. In the grand scheme of things, Steve doesn’t feel like his life is missing anything, or that he’s got any right to complain. But there are moments where he remembers what it was like to work alongside Peggy, to have that thrill of the possibility of more, and he suddenly feels a wave of unbearable sadness.

So he lets them take him bowling or out to weird restaurants that Tony calls fusion cuisine. Because it’s not what he really needs, but sometimes you just need something to fill the space.

Tonight, Natasha’s dragged him and Clint to some sort of bar in lower Manhattan. Except it’s not like most of the bars that he’s been to before, usually at Tony’s irritating insistence; this bar has more of a laidback feel to it. There are old licence plates from all fifty states nailed to the walls alongside interesting modern art installations using what looks like recycled materials. It’s an odd mix of cool modernism and warm retro (at least from what Steve has picked up over the last few years, post-ice - in this time, retro is a good twenty years after he hit the ice).

He actually likes it a lot. Once they settle in the booth, a young man with a half-shaved head steps up to the small stage in the corner and picks up an acoustic guitar. Turns out the guy has a smooth, soft voice that Steve actually enjoys listening to.

They’re nursing the first round of beers (frankly, Steve never enjoyed getting drunk pre-serum anyway, so the fact that alcohol doesn’t even give him a buzz anymore doesn’t really bug him - he just likes the taste) when Clint says, “ _Whoa_ ,” in an awed tone. When Steve turns to face him, Clint’s got almost comically large eyes which seem to be darting between Steve, Natasha, and something over Steve’s shoulder. “Is that Lewis with _Henry from Accounting_?”

Sure enough, when Steve darts a look, trying for casual enough that if Darcy catches him looking it won’t appear like he’s creepily staring at her, she is, indeed, sitting next to Henry, her eyes focused on his face as he tells her a story that involves a lot of hand gestures. Darcy laughs suddenly and brings her bottle of beer to lips. Steve tries not to stare at her mouth and fails miserably.

He and Darcy haven’t crossed paths many times over the last few months that she’s been working at the tower on various projects with Stark or SHIELD, but she reminds him a bit of the girls that used to run the show in his old neighbourhood, used to wear bright red lipstick and let the wind toss their skirts up high enough that the married, church-going women would toss them a dirty, judgemental look before corralling their children or husbands into their homes.

Basically, the women who never gave Steve a second look. God, barely a first look, if that.

Steve used to sketch their ankles, the curved lines of their calves and thighs that disappeared under their skirts that he used to imagine were soft and warm with their body. They weren’t ever mean to him - no, most women in the neighbourhood liked Steve plenty, just never like _that_ \- but they were always invariably interested in guys like Bucky, that waxed their hair back and knew how to toss a dame over their shoulder.

Now… now he’s watching Darcy on what’s clearly a date with a guy who looks more like Steve did back in the day (okay, a lot taller with broader shoulders, but skinny and definitely skewin’ more to Steve than Bucky). Darcy, who barely seems to pay him a lick of notice when he’s around, more likely to throw him a friendly smile than the hungry stares that he’s come to expect with this new body and this new age.

Natasha looks nonplussed when Steve finally turns around, though Natasha looks nonplussed when being actively shot at, so that doesn’t mean much. “So what if she is?” she asks, finally looking irritated as she motions for their waitress. “Ugh, where is our waitress? I want some goddamn mozza sticks!” No one fucks with Natasha when she’s hungry.

Clint smiles before reaching a hand up and getting a look from the harried waitress who motions back that she’s coming. “So… I don’t know.” Natasha takes a drink from his beer and he makes a low hissing noise before stealing it back, nearly losing a finger in the process. “Doesn’t look like her type.”

“And you know what her type is?”

Steve zones out a bit, trying to find ways of watching what’s going on behind him without turning around and making it obvious. There’s half a shiny car bumper sticking out of the wall that gives him a bit a line of sight, though it’s distorted by the bend of the metal. He hears Clint order for them (which makes Natasha sigh irritably - Steve learned the hard way that Natasha does NOT like people ordering for her, but she puts up with a lot of shit from Clint that she won’t from others - and huff out, “Salsa with the mozza sticks. HOT, please!”) before he and Natasha fall back into the banter.

After a few minutes of watching a slightly warped Darcy lean closer to this Henry fella, Steve finally tunes Clint and Natasha back in again.

“Clint,” Natasha says flatly, looking viciously bored, tapping her fingers against the table, “you have the relationship intuition of most kindergarteners.”

“Hey!” Clint flicks a peanut shell at Natasha which bounces off her shoulder and lands in Steve’s lap.

Steve shoots Clint his most unimpressed look which he returns with a wide smile.

The guy with the half-shaved head finally finishes his set, and a woman in a floaty white dress and very red cowboy boots climbs up on the stage. With a banjo.

“Ooh, she’s going to play the _banjo?_ ” Clint says excitedly, clapping his hands while Natasha rolls her eyes and mutters _finally_ under her breath as the waitress dumps a giant plate of vegetarian nachos and mozza sticks in front of her, which she begins to eat with the savage disregard of a lion tearing into a water buffalo carcass. It’s a bit scary.

When Steve sneaks another look at Darcy, Henry’s got his arm around her shoulder.

Steve officially hates the fucking banjo.

 

\--

 

“So how did you like it?” Darcy asks cheerfully when they enter Tony’s workshop. Behind her, Tony is grappling with two of his robots, his body half-stuck in what looks like his latest round of armor. Peering over her shoulder, Darcy clearly reads their minds, sipping coffee out of a cup covered in dozens of tiny axes. “No, don’t help him. Tony needs to learn the consequences of his terrible decisions. Anyway, more importantly, how did you like it? Best bar or BEST bar?”

Steve tries to look and sound casual when he speaks, but Natasha’s eyebrows basically morse code to him that he looks as stupid as he feel when he says, “Oh, that was your suggestion?”

“Yeah. Nat was saying you guys needed a new place to try,” Darcy says. “It’s my favourite. Did you go on Tuesday? The chick on the banjo made me want to kill myself a bit, but usually it’s pretty awesome.”

“Hey,” Clint snaps, “the banjo is an underappreciated instrument.”

Darcy rolls her eyes dramatically right at Clint, letting her opinion be known without saying a word. “Anyway, as I was saying - cool joint, you should come again. Thursdays are 80s karaoke night and I always rock out to some Pat Benatar.”

“Sounds cool,” Steve says, and this time Natasha closes her eyes, her head shaking ever so slightly.

But Darcy just smiles and looks back over her shoulder where Tony is starting to yell furiously at DUM-E while the robot aims its pincher at the piece of his suit resting over his thighs and crotch. “Okay I'm going to go pick up the new parts for dumbass’s repulser modification from storage. If he hasn't managed to pull himself out of that thing before I get back, would you help him? Because I’m sure as hell not going to.”

Darcy waves her fingers at Tony, who screams, “YOU’RE FIRED, LEWIS!” at her while she cackles, sipping the last of her coffee before stepping around Steve to walk out the blast doors of the lab.

In the minute it takes Darcy to disappear around the corner, Steve imagines Henry walking Darcy home, his hand on her hip, leaning into her. He imagines how that hip would feel, how it would yield under the press of his fingers…

Jesus. Steve doesn’t really like to swear out loud that much (it just seems rather uncouth, frankly), but he does a lot of it in his head. And Steve? Steve is _fucked._

But, as it turns out, he doesn’t have to worry. By the end of the month, Henry’s been moved to the Greenland field office.

Clint looks accusingly at Steve while medical applies butterfly bandages to the small cut on his forehead. “There’s a need for forensic accountants in Greenland?” The tone causally says, _I know what you did, Rogers_. He’s not sure if Clint learned it from Natasha or vice versa, but the ability of the two of them to say shit without actually saying it is borderline frightening.

No, Clint definitely learned it from Natasha. Natasha’s eyebrows alone have their very own secret language. A single muscle twitch can tell you exactly how hard she’s going to make you cry.

Annoyed, Steve narrows his eyes. “It wasn’t me.” It actually wasn't, but he's not going to pretend that he's not happy to see Henry go. Steve always thought himself above Schadenfreude, but apparently not. Enjoy the snowy tundra of Nuuk, Henry.

“Sure thing, cowboy,” Clint shoots a finger gun at Steve with the biggest shit-eating grin imaginable.

“Oh shut up,” Steve huffs as the nurse leans over to check his rapidly purpling ribcage.

 

\--

 

After Henry, there’s Francois from translation. Then Richie and Jeff. Followed by Aaron, who works as an intelligence specialist and whom Clint calls _Hipster Light_ every time Fury or Hill drags him into a sitrep to explain the strategic threat of specific militant groups.

Steve doesn’t pry into the details, mostly because it’s rude (but partially because SHIELD is hands down the worst when it comes to gossiping, and he knows the minute he inquires, it will be all over the damn building, and he doesn’t particularly want to live down that embarrassment, nor cause any for Darcy). That being said, he knows most of them don’t last more than a date for two (mostly thanks to the aforementioned gossip grapevine).

Steve tries not think about much that pleases him. It makes him feel extraordinarily petty, and while, yeah, he’s spent a good portion of the last six months pining over Darcy a bit, he also knows that he hasn’t stepped up to the plate either.

After that though, there’s Charlie. Charlie is a post-graduate student working with Banner. He’s incredibly smart and unerringly nice, which makes it very, very difficult for Steve to hate him when he catches Charlie winding a scarf around Darcy’s neck one evening as she’s heading home, using it to tug her in to give her a sweet kiss on the cheek.

“She really likes them skinny and hipster, huh?” Clint comments one day while they’re eating in the commissary. Darcy and Charlie are sitting over with Jane and Thor; because Thor doesn’t know the meaning of an indoor voice, the entire room is being treated to his story about their latest mission. “I don’t get it! I totally had her pegged as the kind of girl who likes ‘em big. Like Steven here.”

Steve tells him to shut it as Charlie throws his arm over Darcy’s shoulder.

What’s worse is that Charlie _lasts_. A few weeks after Steve sees them in the commissary together, she brings him to the small, but lavish party that Tony throws for Pepper’s birthday, even though Pepper specifically told Tony she didn’t want one, and reminds him very loudly when the seven tier cake shows up. Tony tells her she’s just lucky he didn’t get a stripper to deliver the cake.

Across the room, Steve watches Charlie put his hand absently into the dark curls running down Darcy’s back and for the first time in a long while seriously wishes he could get drunk.

“Holy shit,” Bucky laughs, coming up from behind Steve and looking at Darcy and Charlie, who are now holding hands. “The guy looks like you. Before you let Stark cook you in his barbie beefcake oven, I mean.”

And the worst part is that he does, although Charlie isn’t nearly as short or skinny, and wears a pair of dark framed glasses that are always falling down his nose. But he’s got the same shape face that Steve used to have, the same shock of slightly-too-long blond hair. It is depressing as hell.

Steve’s not sure what’s written on his face, but suddenly Bucky looks unaccountably guilty. “Steve, you know I was kidding right?” He clasps him on the shoulder and leads him away from the crowd, closer to the bar where Bucky orders some really fruity drink that comes with a tiny pink umbrella speared through a cherry. Bucky just shrugs and sighs, “Natasha got me hooked on them. Don’t ask. They taste really good, but I feel decidedly unmanly when I drink them.” Then he smirks. “Good thing I shoot a sniper rifle for a living, I guess.”

Steve grabs the bottle of beer the bartender offers him and takes a long drag off it.

“So, you’ve got a thing for Lewis?”

Steve shrugs. “Ironic, isn’t it? Girls back then wouldn’t give me the time of day, and now…”

The week before, Natasha had brought Darcy round to the gym while he and Bucky were doing resistance training. He had been shirtless while Natasha had chewed them out about one thing or another (he’d been a little distracted, but he’d caught the edges of Natasha complaining about Bucky yet again not filing the papers she needed to complete her report, and Steve, _Weren’t you supposed to keeping this idiot on a leash_ , which resulted in Bucky barking like a dog at her before The Eyebrow had revealed a level of pain to be brought that even Bucky wasn’t going to fuck around with). And Darcy had snuck a little look at him while she thought he hadn’t been looking, but it was more inquisitive and less appraising, and to be completely honest, Steve just doesn’t know what the hell to do with that.

Bucky gets that disappointed look on his face that makes Steve feel like shit every time he wears it, like Bucky can’t quite believe how stupid Steve is being. “You do realize that the serum didn’t change this, right?” Bucky says as he reaches up and flicks Steve’s forehead hard enough that it stings just a little. “What you’re telling me is that Lewis would have jumped your skinny little bones back then, but from where I’m standing, it sure as hell wouldn’t have been because of your bony elbows, bud.”

Steve’s spent the better part of his life wanting to believe Bucky, but Bucky's biased and Steve is a realist. “You’ve always gone around telling yourself you know what people think of you. Give her - and you - a chance. Jesus, you’re a goddamn Avenger and you’re like, ‘Oh, I don’t know if she’ll like me ‘cause I’m not a raging hipster with pigment issues!'  Pshh.” Bucky rolls his eyes and drops his glass onto the counter.

“But you also realize that this chance-giving will probably require you to verbally communicate with her, right?” Bucky motions with his hand toward the bartender, requesting another; the guy kind of stares at Bucky’s metal fingers for a second before snapping out of it and reaching for the peach schnapps. “I don’t get it, you weren’t even this tongue-tied around Carter, and the woman fucking shot at you, Steve.”

Steve just shrugs again and chugs the rest of his beer watching Charlie lead Darcy to the strange light-up dance floor Tony had installed for the party. Another beer appears when he motions to the bartender.

Natasha saunters up to the two of them and eyes Bucky’s drink.

“Really?” she asks.

“I don’t appreciate your gender-normative commentary,” Bucky says blandly, taking a sip of his fuzzy navel.

 

\--

 

Three weeks later, Charlie gets a SHIELD-funded five year grant to study the reproductive habits of the Nycticebuskayan in Borneo.

“What the hell is that?” Clint asks, picking at an absolute disgusting scab that runs almost the entire length of his forearm. Natasha caught him doing it during their mission brief that morning and the brief was interspersed with the sound of Natasha slapping the shit out of Clint’s hands.

“Not a fucking clue,” Bucky asks, looking smug before turning back to steal the remote from Steve. “No. I’m not watching any more _The Joy of Painting_ , Steve. Jesus. There’s only so many times I want to watch Bob Ross paint a fucking tree.”

Steve scowls as Bucky switches to _Man vs. Wild_.

 

\--

 

“Steve?”

The pencil skips on the page and the intricate railing on the stairwell next to the bodega across the street suddenly has a harsh line through it. He looks up and Darcy’s standing beside the chair next to him, a couple with a wailing baby moving behind her clumsily enough that they knock into her a bit. “Darcy?” He’s not sure why he poses it as a question when it’s so obviously her.

“Yep!” She motions to the chair and gives a half shrug. “Please,” Steve says, knocking the chair out with his foot.

Darcy orders a cup of coffee and a cheese danish, tells him that she’s been looking for a new regular coffee place now that Marchiallo’s got turned into a Starbucks, and Natasha had suggested she check out Milk & Roses.

Smooth, Steve thinks. He’s taken Natasha here enough times for her to know that he spends most of the weekends he’s off loitering here, watching the old neighbourhood he barely recognizes and sketching the people that walk past.

Darcy’s staring at the book in front of him; he’s got a finger in it, holding his place.

“You writing?”

“Sketching.”

“Oh!” Darcy sounds pleased. “I love art. I’m completely useless when it comes to anything requiring artistic talent, which is probably why I love it. I have a thing for poking bruises. The more I suck at something, the more I covet it.” She leans over and taps his closed moleskin with a fingernail that she’s painted black this week. “You any good?”

Steve never knows how to answer that question. Art, he’s found, is so subjective. And even if he thought he were good, he’s just never really believed in being a braggart. So instead he shrugs her and taps the book toward her, feeling a bit nervous as she reaches for it with a smile, flipping it open.

The first couple dozen pages are most of what he’s sketched sitting at this very cafe. Rough bits of scenes, people walking by. More refined sketches of the regulars like him. The students of the local college down the street that usually drop by for study breaks. The half-rotten elm tree that Steve is pretty sure the city is going to cut down. Lot of coffee and tea cups, jars of biscotti. The intricate sconces of some of the older buildings in the area.

“Is that my ring?”

Sure enough, there’s a sketch of her hand in there, complete with the salamander ring she wears on her right ring finger. He completely forgot he had sketched it. He’d been waiting in Stark’s lab while Bucky had his arm recalibrated after he had reached for the salt and instead crushed the entire thing in his palm, scattering glass across the dinner table. Darcy had been tapping her fingers against the desk, her attention focused solely on the laptop and he hadn’t been able to help himself.

It’s one of the sketches he’s most proud of. There’s a few hours of work in the shading alone, the detail very delicate and generally a lot different than the typical sketches he pumps out.

“Oh,” Steve says. “Um, yes. You’ve got really lovely hands.”

Steve says a silent prayer of thanks that Bucky and Natasha aren’t around to see this performance. He sounds like a creepy serial killer.

Darcy’s entire face lights up and Steve feels his chest unclench a bit. She really does have the nicest smile when she’s genuinely happy. “Really?”

“Yeah,” he says. “Elegant fingers.” They really are - slim and graceful and beautiful.

Darcy sighs, leaning forward and flexing her hands so her fingers dance against the surface of the table. “I tried to take piano lessons with my sister when I was ten, but our instructor just continually found roundabout ways of telling me that my fingers were too stubby for it.”

Steve is horrified. Before he can think better of it, he reaches over and runs a thumb over one of her fingers, tracing up over the knuckles. “He was wrong.”

Darcy almost looks flustered, which is a revelation for Steve; he’s never seen her like this. Her cheeks are pinking up a little and she’s no longer looking him in the eye. “She,” Darcy says shakily. “Honestly, I think she just got really sick of me and was looking for a reason. Doesn’t matter though - I preferred the trumpet anyway.”

After she finishes sorting through the rest of the sketches (she stops to laugh for a good thirty seconds at the sketch of Bucky asleep, his jaw slack and hanging open) she closes the book and hands it back over to him. As the book hits his palm, a photograph comes fluttering out, landing on the table next to Darcy’s cup of coffee.

“Is that you?” she asks. “Oh my god!”

“Yeah, that was me and Bucky at Coney Island,” Steve says, leaning over her shoulder as she looks at it. They’d both looked so happy that day and the photo was definitely the most flattering of Steve pre-serum; it’d been taken during a lucky break health-wise, and Steve looked like he actually had some meat on his bones. “About 20 minutes before Bucky filled me up on cotton candy and made me ride the cyclone. Barfed it all back up again. Right on to his new shoes.”

Darcy laughs, then bites her lip, running a finger over the photo. God, he wants to sketch her hands again. He wants to _touch_ her hands again. “You were a cutie - so handsome.”

There’s something so genuine and truthful in the way she says it that Steve’s heart just wants to simultaneously burst and break. “Yeah, you would have actually gone for me back in the day.”

Darcy’s smile falters a bit. She looks up at him and Steve deeply regrets opening his mouth. He doesn’t think it sounded judgemental, but he knows there’s a million different ways to take something like that.

“Is there something wrong with how you look now?” Darcy asks, and her voice is completely devoid of any type of lightness that would indicate she’s making fun of him.

“Oh, um-” Steve stutters, and he can feel his cheeks warming a bit. He really, really does not want to talk about this with her, and tries to think of the quickest way to brush the topic off. He’s not ashamed of the man that his ma and father made him as much as he doesn’t take stock in the people who want him only for what Dr. Erskine made him. “No. Sometimes I just forget. I didn’t have much luck with girls back in the day. Bucky’d end up taking both our dates home half the time.”

He takes a deep breath. “Sometimes… Sometimes I just worry that people don’t see the important things, you know?”

For once, Steve can’t read the look on Darcy’s face. Her mouth is a bit grim, but the rest of her looks soft, her eyes tracing patterns over his face.

“No accounting for taste,” she says finally, the lick of a smile resting in the corners of her mouth as she leans back her chair and reaches for her coffee.

 

\--

 

They stay until the cafe closes, after which Steve insists on walking her home because it’s dark and she doesn’t live in the tower with the rest of them.

Darcy leans into him as they walk, bumping her shoulder into his arm as he talks a bit about the war, a bit about living with Bucky before it, and a bit about the painters he admires. About how he wanted to be an artist before he was a soldier. She mostly listens, adding in little bits about herself, about how until the age of nine, she wanted to be a sword swallower in the circus, how her sister is a corporate attorney who lives in Atlanta, and very briefly (and in a tone that makes Steve stay silent and not press the topic) about how aimless she’s started to feel now that she’s no longer working with Jane.

It takes them nearly an hour to walk to her apartment, talking the entire time. Steve is genuinely disappointed when he hears her say, “Well, this is me.”

She starts up the steps before he reaches out and catches a few of her fingers, bringing her to a stop.

“I really,” Steve says, pausing for a second to let his mind catch up with his mouth. “I really enjoyed talking with you. Honestly. It’s been so long…”

Darcy nods, and in a matter-of-fact voice says, “You should really kiss me now.”

So he does.

 

\--

 

On Monday, Steve is sporting some serious hickies.

(In fairness, he _definitely_ thought that they would heal up before Monday morning, which is the only reason he let Darcy bite and suck marks along his neck in the first place.

Okay, not the _only_ reason.)

Unfortunately, Steve doesn’t own a single thing that covers his neck unless he wants to show up in his SHIELD parka or wear a jaunty scarf (which had been Darcy’s suggestion as she laughed at him over the phone this morning), but somehow he thinks that would probably be a bigger giveaway than the three purple, mouth-shaped bruises Darcy left on his skin.

The great thing about working with spies? They don’t miss a damn thing. Bucky whistles lowly the second Steve takes a seat in the conference room, and says quietly to Natasha, “Yeah, she does have a fiesty mouth on her, doesn’t she?”

Steve gives Bucky the finger.

Clint drops down beside him. “Ha, good thing Henry got shipped off to Greenland, huh,” he says, slapping Steve’s back with an open palm.

Bucky’s face screws up a little, then relaxes into a sly, knowing smile as he turns to Natasha. “Greenland?” he asks her, his eyebrows high and accusing.

Oh, she didn’t.

Natasha shrugs, not an inch of guilt on her face. “He was a sketchy little shit. Plus, he wore winter-themed sweatervests. Unironically, I might add. Darcy could do a lot better.” Then her smiles stops somewhere between lecherous and predatory. “I guess she did _do_ a lot better.”

Bucky and Clint laugh. Steve slaps Bucky’s hand hard as he reaches out and tries to poke one of the hickies with his metal finger.

“So. Should I assume Borneo as well?” Steve asks Natasha flatly.

Natasha shrugs. “Not me,” she says, and Steve believes her because Natasha wouldn’t bother to lie about it.

Out of the corner of Steve’s eye, Bucky is looking shifty as hell.

(Later, Steve brings Darcy home after a pretty great date, shows her some more of his sketches, makes an off-hand comment about the brilliance of Gaugin, and she proceeds to shove him down onto the couch, climb into his lap and suck on his tongue until he feels like he’s melting into the goddamn leather.

Then Darcy takes his hand and slips it underneath her skirt and oh my god...

Yeah, Steve totally makes a mental note to send Natasha a fruit basket.

Or a knives-and-semi-automatic-weapons basket.

Bucky just gets a round of fuzzy navels the next time they go out to the bar and is made to promise not to pull that shit again, because while Steve will always appreciate the lengths Bucky will go to to ensure Steve’s happiness, sending a man to Borneo for five years is a bit much. Bucky just shrugs, sticks the umbrellas over his ears and smiles at Natasha, whose mouth scrunches down like she’s sucked on a lemon, and then whines, _where are my goddamn mozza sticks!_ )

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [something to fill the space [Podfic]](https://archiveofourown.org/works/2074716) by [blackglass](https://archiveofourown.org/users/blackglass/pseuds/blackglass)




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